


Contractual Obligations

by thedevilchicken



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/F, Post-Canon, What-If
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-22
Updated: 2016-10-22
Packaged: 2018-08-24 01:52:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8351686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedevilchicken/pseuds/thedevilchicken
Summary: Once Dany took the Iron Throne, she didn't have to marry.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Netgirl_y2k](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Netgirl_y2k/gifts).



Once Dany took the Iron Throne, she didn't have to marry. 

There were many reasons why she should have - many good reasons, and not simply that marriage was expected of a queen. An alliance in marriage with the appropriate house, she was told, would bring with it a sense of calm and stability; calm and stability, of course, had never been what she could have considered her strengths. It would settle discussion over the legitimacy of her rule, she was told, though she rather thought her dragons provided a tidier solution to perfidy. Then there was the not inconsiderable matter of the begetting of a clear legal heir, and yes, she may have granted the wisdom in that, but she couldn't think then of motherhood when she was mother to her people. 

When she took the Iron Throne, she didn't have to marry. So, she didn't. 

All the noble houses came up in arms about it, just as she'd expected, remonstrated at her audiences, made petitions to her small council, sent letters to her Hand. As her reign reached a year and then two, however, calm and stability began to take hold even without her marriage. Her rule was quietly accepted, at least Varys's spies told him so and his eyes did see so much. And perhaps she begat no heir but there was time, she thought. There was time to make her plans and put them into action so that her heirs would bear her name and not that of another house. She had not taken Westeros to watch the quiet death of House Targaryen. 

She didn't marry. And when, in her third year, the Westerosi nobles began to make their disgruntled noises once again, she made her decision: she wouldn't marry, not ever. Instead, she would take consorts from high houses. Were she to conceive children, they would be dragons.

Tyrion was greatly amused when she proposed she take his brother Jaime for House Lannister, but did not bar her from it; in the end, she took a lower cousin of the Lannister name instead and kept Jaime in King's Landing in spite of who he'd killed. Jon Snow - Jon _Stark_ , as he was made after the war was over - became her man in Winterfell and Warden of the North. Robert Arryn of the Vale agreed reluctantly, and in name only, much as Loras Tyrell in Highgarden. They made strange matches, but good ones, strong ones, even moderately formal ones after the contracts drawn by her small council. What she did scandalised the Seven Kingdoms, but brought them all together. 

And then, the Iron Islands came and knocked upon her door. 

"You've an interesting style," Yara Greyjoy told her over dinner, queen of the Iron Islands seated as she was at Dany's left hand. Tyrion took the right side; he was the queen's good right Hand, after all. 

"It was my wish to make an impression," Daenerys replied. "Would you say that I've succeeded?"

"Some might say."

"Would _you_ say?"

Yara smiled mischievously. She did not reply. She returned to her food, and to her cup of wine that was filled and refilled, and Dany did not push her for an answer. But the following day, in the throne room, Daenerys ascended the Iron Throne and took her seat; Yara Greyjoy was there, her seventh petitioner, waiting patiently in line despite her station. 

"Why have the Iron Islands come to us?" Daenerys asked, from her throne. 

Yara shrugged, her hand on the hilt of her sword, but the gesture seemed much more of ease and amusement than of malice given the smile she didn't hide. 

"Even we islanders make it our business to know yours, your grace," she said. "You're taking consorts. Do you want us to feel slighted that the Iron Islands haven't seen a single envoy?"

Dany laughed. Yara's smile just broadened, and Dany understood her meaning. And so the bargain came to be struck between them; Daenerys stood and went down the steps and she reached out her hand to Yara; they clasped each other by the wrist and that was that. The contracts came later. They both understood that there would be a price. 

To others, perhaps the motivation seemed primarily political. With the two queens as consorts, the Westerosi shores were guaranteed the strongest possible protections and the Iron Islands guaranteed they wouldn't starve for lack of raiding. The two nations traded in between each other and, by and by, half the ships of the Seven Kingdoms' fleet were bought from Pyke and fit for bloody warfare should the need arise. It was an excellent arrangement. 

Perhaps the motivation seemed primarily political, and so it was. The contracts were drawn most favourably in both directions, and both Pyke and King's Landing were satisfied by them. And, given their odd queen's other scandals, the arrangement struck between the two women barely seemed to raise a single questioning eyebrow. They had Daenerys's reputation to thank for that, and those precious politics of the situation, though that was just the half of it. 

"Do you sleep with them?" Yara asked that first night, as she unbuckled her sword from her waist. She glanced back over her shoulder, across the room in the candlelight, as she rested the sword against the wall. "The other consorts. Do you sleep with them?"

"I suppose I might, one day," Dany replied. "I suppose that I might have to. Does that please or disappoint you?"

"Does it follow that _our_ relations should be chaste at present?" Yara said, ignoring the question rather pointedly.

Daenerys laughed. "The contracts may be thorough, but it seems we've neglected detail on that point," she said. "Though I'm sure my small council would enjoy the writing of it."

Yara took off her gloves. Yara took off her coat. Yara shook down her hair and she raised her brows and looked at her. "Then maybe this calls for a local agreement," she said, as she began to move across the room.

"I suppose we might explore the possibility," Dany replied, as she began to move to meet her.

Yara's sea-roughened hands met Dany's bared arms. Dany's fine fingers slipped into Yara's short, salted hair. They had a lot to discuss, and a whole evening to do it. And they knew each year those contracts would all need renewing, and they do; they take the journey in turns, Queen Daenerys overland then ferried up to Pyke, Queen Yara by sea to King's Landing, by way of Blackwater Bay. They fly their banners side by side above their respective keeps just while they visit. And, by their own tradition, just while they visit one queen's chambers become two's. 

Once Dany took the Iron Throne, she didn't have to marry. 

With Yara's hands on her bare skin, and Yara's laughter in the air, she knows she did the next best thing.


End file.
